The Bear

The market shows you what it wants to do with each candle it prints.

Look at this beautiful 5m chart from today on the Nasdaq. It's clean. It's readable. Online? On Twitter? It's a dumpster fire. People talking about quitting, taking a break, losing accounts, “shitty price action,” “market conditions this,” “market conditions that.”

What do these people think happens in this arena? Do they think the market only goes up? Do they not know it ranges most of the time? That reversals are the exception, not the rule? That most breakouts fail? On the daily we're clearly ranging after a strong push higher. That bear candle is telling you sellers are present. Buyers are taking profits. At some point that changes too. If I hadn't told you this was a 5-minute chart, you could easily believe it was the daily. Same structure. Same story.

It doesn't matter what the chart looks like. It's going to look like what it's going to look like. There should be no such thing as “garbage market conditions” for a real trader. That mindset feels scummy to me. Greedy. Like you can only make money in perfect uptrends. Those are the easiest days, and people still find ways to lose!

I'm currently watching The Bear on FX. I put it on at night after I study the day. People obsessed with a craft are the most interesting to me. People who are all-in on becoming masterful at something. In real life, I could never find those people. That's probably why I'm a lone trader now.

I tried different things I was obsessed with — sports, music, writing. With music, I spent years locked in on piano, writing, and producing. The people I surrounded myself with just didn't have the same drive. I never found a Carmy or Sydney. They were all Michaels.

In real life, you need people like that around you if you want to get better. Carmy made Sydney better. She made him better. They grew through pain, failure, and humiliation. I realized too late that I didn't have that. I only had me.

So I found the charts.

The market became the only opponent that never lied to me, never half-assed it, and never needed motivation. Every candle is the truth. Every session is the battle. The people around me couldn't match the intensity, so the market became my teacher, my friend and my enemy. The market requires obsession.

That's the real game. Not the noise online. Not the perfect conditions. Just you, the candles, and the obsession with why it's not currently fucking trending.

Past performance is not indicative of future results. Trade at your own risk.